Upstairs Downstairs Brought Back to Life
May 22nd 2011 15:53
I just love British movies about the two very different social classes intermingling and creating drama. The recently Warner Bros. DVD release of Upstairs Downstairs from BBC is one of the most beloved television series of all time.
This month the series was brought back to life in a sumptuous new production with a fresh new cast. It's 1936 and six years since parlor maid Rose (Jean Marsh) left 165 Eaton Place. Fate brings her back as housekeeper to its new owners, Sir Hallam Holland (Ed Stoppard), his wife Lady Agnes (Keeley Hawes), and his mother, Lady Maud Holland (Eileen Atkins).
Rose soon finds she has her work cut out for her as she recruits a new “downstairs” family to help run the elegance and finery of the “upstairs” world. Both upstairs and downstairs, it soon becomes apparent there is a labyrinth of secrets, lies and scandal.
Set against the historical backdrop of a pre-World War II, which I love, Britain with a new King on the throne, with Fascism on the rise on the continent, and with sexual, social and political tensions at 165 Eaton Place, this new series provides an evocative take on the master-servant relationship.
It’s a life that a majority of us will never see or experience, but this series allows us to veraciously take these lives of upstairs and downstairs and be in a world of British drama.
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